Psychology in !he Schools Volume 19. October. 1982

COMPARISON OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO MEASURES OF VISUAL-MOTOR COORDINATION AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

DAN WRIGHT STEPHEN T. DEMERS

Ralston Public Schools. Ralston. Nebraska

University of Kentucky

Scores from Koppitz’ scoring system for the Bender-Gestalt and Beery’s Developmen- tal Test of Visual-Motor Integration for a groupof 86 elementary students referred for psychoeducational evaluation were correlated with Wide Range Achievement Test scores, controlling for WISC-R IQ. Although zero-order correlations of the visual- motor measures with achievement were of moderate magnitude (.33 to .48) and were all statistically significant @<.OI), first-order partial correlations were of lower magnitude (. 13 to .22) and half failed to reach statistical significance @>.05). It was suggested that visual-motor ability may not offer a unique contribution to the predic- tion of achievement.

Two of the most widely used standardized instruments for the assessment of children’s visual-motor abilities are the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test (Bender, 1938), using Koppitz’ (1964, 1975) developmental scoring system, and the Developmen- tal Test of Visual-Motor Integration (Beery, 1967). Although Beery’s task is more struc- tured, since it provides boundaries for size and placement of the child’s response (Krauft & Krauft, 1972) and presents higher reliability coefficients (Colarusso & Gill, 1976), the tasks are inherently similar; both require reproduction of a geometric design from a model. In addition, both purportedly assess the child’s ability to coordinate visual perception with a motor response, which, in turn, is assumed to be involved in the ac- quisition of specific academic skills such as reading and arithmetic (Beery, 1967; Kop- pitz, 1964, 1975; Wallace & Larsen, 1978). Many school psychologists use either the Beery or Koppitz scoring of the Bender, often interchangeably, in evaluations of school- aged children referred for learning or adjustment difficulties.

Some evidence exists that scores on the Beery and Koppitz measures are not equivalent. With a sample of 44 nonreferred second graders, Brown (1977) found signifi- cant differences in age-equivalent scores on the two tests, with higher scores on the Bender, and a moderate but significant correlation (r=.43, p<.Ol). In a sample of 93 students aged 6 to 11 years referred for learning or adjustment difficulties, DeMers, Wright, and Dappen (198 1) found a significant, moderate correlation between standard scores on the two tests (r=.59, p<.OOI), with signifiantly higher scores on the Beery task. It was concluded that the tests are not interchangeable, and that assessment outcomes could vary according to which test was chosen for administration. In a sample of 125 regular education students in kindergarten through third grade, Lehman and Breen ( 1982) noted significant differences in age-equivalent scores yielded by the two tests, with higher scores on the Bender, and an overall correlation somewhat higher than reported from the other studies (r=.71, p<.Ol), but which still indicated a rather limited amount of shared variance. These authors also concluded that the tests evidence real and impor- tant differences. From this limited review, it appears one such difference may be a tendency for referred students as a group to score higher on the Beery than .on the Bender, as consistent with the hypothesis of DeMers, et al. (1981).

Besides this apparent lack of equivalence, the Beery and Koppitz measures, along with other indices of visual-motor and perceptual processes, have been challenged

Requests for reprints should be sent to Dan Wright, Ralston Public Schools, District No. 54, 8545 Park Drive, Ralston, NE 68127-3690.

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474 Visual-Motor Coordination and Academic Achievement

recently as having little relationship with or diagnostic significance for children’s academic achievement. Salvia and Ysseldyke (1981) describe as inadequate the norms, reliability, and validity data of these instruments as methods of individual child study. Arter and Jenkins (1979) question the entire diagnostic testing-prescriptive teaching model in which deficits on such measures are assumed to be related to deficits in academic achievement. Despite claims of correlational evidence for the relationship between these measures and indices of academic achievement (Beery, 1967; Koppitz, 1964, 1975; Snyder, Massong, & Ashmore, 1980), Arter and Jenkins (1979) argue that “mere statistical significance is not evidence for validity.” They recommend a criterion established by Guilford (1956) that a correlation coefficient of .35 be considered as a minimum cutoff for criterion validity, and that, where appropriate, extraneous variables such as intelligence be controlled for to avoid spuriously inflated correlations.

Few studies have compared the Beery and Koppitz procedures in terms of their rela- tion to general ability and academic achievement measures despite their lack of equivalence. Hartlage and Lucas (1976) correlated scores on Beery’s and Koppitz’ tasks with the WISC (Wechsler, 1949) and the WRAT (Jastak & Jastak, 1965). Although the authors were concerned primarily with the issue of test bias in their biracial samples, the results are of interest from the current perspective as well. Correlations of WISC Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale scores with scores on the WRAT and Beery and Koppitz tests all were significant and of moderate magnitude. Correlations of Beery and Koppitz scores with the WRAT, however, were of generally lower magnitude, and several in- volving Koppitz scores failed to reach significance. These data are amenable to the possi- ble interpretation that the Beery and Koppitz tasks would account for little variance in achievement independently of the WISC. This tentative interpretation is given some sup- port by Keogh (1969, who reported that correlations between the Bender-Gestalt and reading achievement became insignificant when intelligence was partialled out. Since in- telligence tests are mandated as a part of the assessment procedure for learning problems, and provide the practitioner with more general information, it seems ap- propriate to use intelligence as the variable under statistical control in a nonexperimental design with achievement as the criterion variable.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the extent to which the Beery and Koppitz measures met the criteria recommended by Arter and Jenkins (1979) for demonstrating criterion-related validity with measures of academic development. That is, with intelligence partialled out, would either the Beery or Koppitz measures correlate at a magnitude of .35 or higher with a standardized measure of academic achievement?

METHOD Subjects and Procedure

Subjects were 55 boys and 3 1 girls, aged 6 through 11 (with a median age of 8-1 l), referred for a variety of learning or adjustment problems in a small, urban school district in the Midwest. These children were predominantly white, and of lower to middle socioeconomic background. As part of a psychoeducational evaluation, all subjects were given the WISC-R (Wechsler, 1974), the WRAT (Jastak & Jastak, 1978), and the Beery and Koppitz tasks. All tests were administered by two certified school psychologists, and high interscorer reliability for the visual-motor tests was determined by use of a third trained examiner who rescored all protocols. Raw scores on the visuai-motor tests were converted to standard scores, using normative data provided by Beery (Note l), and

Visual-Motor Coordination and Academic Achievement 475

Koppitz (1975); this prevented spuriously high correlations that could result from the use of developmental scales across a broad age range. Pearson product-moment correlations among all variables were calculated first, followed by partial correlations of Beery and Koppitz scores with WRAT subtest scores while adjusting for the effect of WISC-R Full Scale IQ. Finally, the resulting coefficients were compared within each achievement area, using an T to z transformation, to determine if significant differences existed.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Means and standard deviations on all variables are presented in Table 1. The

moderate restriction of range on all variables, to be expected in a referred sample, is notable but not extreme.

TABLE 1 Means and Standard Deviations of Beery and Koppitz Scores,

WRAT Subtests, and WISC-R Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQsl

j i SD

Beery2 KoppitzZ WRAT Reading WRAT Arithmetic WRAT Spelling Verbal IQ Performance IQ Full Scale IQ

86.97 77.00 90.60 88.49 88.29 91.77 95.67 92.86

11.33 17.46 14.11 11.83 10.64 14.63 15.92 15.38

'N=86. Converted to standard scores.

TABLE 2 Intercorrelations of Koppitz, Beery, WRAT Subtests,

and WISC-R Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs in Standard Scores

WRAT WISC-R Koppitz Beery 6 5 4 3 2

1 . Verbal IQ .51 .58 .54 .36 .31 .93 .71 2. Performance IQ .65 .66 .50 .38 .31 .92 3. Full Scale IQ .62 .66 ,57 .40 .37

5. Spelling .4 1 .40 .73 4. Reading .37 .33 .66 .82

6. Arithmetic .47 .48 7. Beery .67

Note.-p 5.01 for all coefficients.

476 Vis ual-Mo t or Coordination and A cadem ic A ch ie vem en t

Table 2 presents Pearsonian correlations among all variables. The results here are similar to those of Hartlage and Lucas (1976), in that the Koppitz and Beery tasks pre- sent generally higher correlations with the WISC-R than the WRAT, and in that cor- relations of the Koppitz and Beery tasks with the WRAT are not higher than those of Full Scale IQ with the WRAT. The correlations of both visual-motor tasks with the WRAT in the present sample are similar in magnitude to those reported by Hartlage and Lucas and generally exceed the .35 minimum recommended by Arter and Jenkins (1979).

Table 3 presents the partial correlations of Beery and Koppitz scores with the WRAT, adjusting for the effect of WISC-R Full Scale IQ. As predicted, partialling out the influence of general ability resulted in a substantial reduction in the magnitude of the correlations of both visual-motor tasks with achievement. Although three of the six resulting correlations are statistically significant, none is of sufficient magnitude to meet the Arter and Jenkins cutoff level of .35, nor to be of any practical utility in predicting children’s achievement difficulties. Statistical comparison of the magnitude of Beery and Koppitz coefficients within each area of achievement yielded no significant differences, though demonstration of equivalence under such circumstances is a moot point.

TABLE 3

Correlations of Koppitz and Beery Scores with WRAT Reading, Spelling, atzd Arithmetic

Subtest Scores with WISC-R Full-Scale IQ Partialled Out

WRAT Koppitz Beery

Reading .19* .13 Spelling .22* .20*

Arithmetic .18 .I7

*p 5.05.

Current practice in the diagnosis and remediation of learning disabilities involves the explicit assumption of a causal relationship between impaired visual-motor skills and achievement difficulties. Previous studies, as well as the present results, support the ex- istence of a correlational relationship. However, partial correlational analysis illustrates that visual-motor ability does not make a unique contribution to the prediction of achievement when a broad range of other developmental abilities are controlled. Although obviously related to achievement, visual-motor ability may offer little beyond general ability level toward the explanation of learning problems. Present results suggest that the assessment of this ability, at least with the two instruments considered, is a prac- tice that should be followed with caution. Subsequent research is needed to determine if such assessment can yield useful information under specific circumstances (e.g., with cer- tain populations or age groups), since it cannot be recommended as a general practice.

REFERENCE NOTE I . B I : ~ K Y , K . E. Personal communication, 1978.

Visual-Motor Coordination and Academic Achievement 477

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